Red Hawk Rising

they brewed was sweetened with condensed milk. Following the twenty-minute break, the team shouldered their rucksacks and turned south towards ‘The Angel’s Peak’. With the fog, they were heading for a small break in the cliffs where they could drop down into the Lairig Ghru and turn north to get back to base before nightfall. Following the ridge, the team came across fresh footprints in the snow. Some folk were walking ahead of them. They followed the prints for about fifteen minutes. Andy Hill and his partner, Stan Stanier, were leading the team at this stage (the two-man teams changed over the lead every twenty minutes) when Andy Hill noticed that the snow was badly scuffed and the tracks went to the edge and then stopped. Andy Hill felt a prickly sensation in the back of his neck and he held up his arm for all to stop. “I wonder if someone has gone over the edge,” he said. Moving carefully, he and Stan examined the edge and noticed that the snow had appeared to have broken away.

They moved back from the edge and called out to Flight Sergeant Bradley, “It looks as though the people before us have gone over the edge.”

“Right! You two rope together and one of you check over the edge and see if you can see anything,” he called back. The two men quickly uncoiled a rope from Stan’s pack and each tied one end in a bowline around his waist. “You look over, Andy, and I’ll hold you,” said Stan. “You have better eyesight than me.” Andy Hill nodded as he fitted his crampons onto his boots. While they were doing this, the other two pairs moved closer, each pair undoing a coil of rope from a pack ready for use.

“You other men check for rock beneath this snow,” ordered Bradley. “We don’t want to find ourselves on a snow overhang.” They used their ice axes to hack through the snow. They all quickly found rock a few inches down except for ‘Stan’ Stanier. He moved slowly back until he found rock about four feet from where he had been standing.

“Andy, I think you could be on the overhang,” he said. Andy nodded. Stanier motioned towards another team’s rope and they threw one end to him, the other end being fastened around the man’s waist. Stan connected his end of the rope to himself, turned towards Andy and braced himself. “We’re ready, Andy. Over to you,” he said. Andy nodded and moved to the edge, lay down on the snow and peered over. He could see about ten feet and then the mist prevented further observation. What he saw was that they were on the edge of a cliff which disappeared out of sight. On each side of him, the snow edge was broken for about three feet. Corporal Hill lifted his arm to show that he was going to move back.

As he started to ease himself up, the edge of the snow started to break away. Immediately, Andy twisted round and grabbed the rope and yelled, “Pull me back, now!” Stan hauled on the rope as Andy threw himself forward and the other team braced the rope that connected them to Stan. Bradley ran forward and threw himself down and reached out for Corporal Hill’s outstretched hand. He grabbed it as the snow started to fall away from under Andy, who was pulled quickly to safety.

Back in safety, Andy grinned his thanks and said that the width of the snow break suggested that it was the snow overhang that had broken away when people had walked out on it. He couldn’t see far down and didn’t hear anything and suggested that one of them may need to abseil down as far as their rope would allow. They may be able to estimate the height of the cliff from their maps. Bradley nodded. “Firstly, we’ll report the situation to base camp and they can notify the lodge who can notify the police. Also, this could be one of the Mancunian teams.” He nodded to his team-mate who was carrying the radio and they started their preparations.

Sergeant Kelly answered on the base radio and advised that Flying Officer Crombie was out in the field but due back that afternoon. He said that he would warn Mountain Rescue at Leuchars as well as the lodge and wait for a further report from Brad and team. The time was now about 11:00 hours.

The mist still hung around with no sign of lifting. Flight Sergeant Bradley decided that they would link four of their ropes together and lower one of the team down as far as they could and see what they could find. Each rope was forty feet long which would enable them to lower to about one hundred and fifty feet from their position. Stanier volunteered to go down. Bradley nodded as they all linked the ropes. Joe Morris, from the other team, located a suitable point and drove in a piton to which the end of the rope was fastened. Meanwhile, Stanier had put his crampons on, put one of the remaining coils of rope over his shoulder and his ice axe looped to his wrist. When the rope was ready, he tied it in a bowline around his waist. Joe Morris and his team-mate took the strain on the rope and Stanier, holding the rope, edged backwards over the edge and braced his feet against the cliff-face. As his head was about to move out of sight, he gave the rest of the team a grin and then was gone. Flight Sergeant Bradley and Corporal Hill drove another piton into the rock and fixed the sixth rope to it as a stand-by measure.

Corporal Stanier lowered himself steadily down the cliff — it was too dangerous to abseil in this weather — and kept checking below to see whether there was any sign of people. He